


Fine Sharp Ears

by vyatka



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Kelpies, Monster Hunters, Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 03:06:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14095785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vyatka/pseuds/vyatka
Summary: "Come," she coaxes, whisper whisper. "Let's have lunch." She waits for the stir in the water, the pointy black ears. They would be soft as velvet if she took them in her fingers. "Come, Sarah."





	Fine Sharp Ears

"It is not hard," Helena tells the boy from the farm. He is not so much smaller than her. He looks up at her like she is his mother. Helena is not his mother. He is older than her, but small, and sick. 

She watches in the glade when the mare comes out of the pond. Ears first. They curve in, like thumbs. They point to each other. Her head is next. The rest of the mare wades to the shore in heavy arch-steps, and her mane - wild as Helena's, and heavy with water - spills drops. The mare is big and strong and wet and wrong, anyone can see it. When has anyone but Helena been good at seeing? 

The boy from the farm touches the mare's nose. She blows in his face. 

_Her breath smells like drowned,_ Helena thinks.  _Can't you see? Bones in her mane and fish in her teeth! Can you see? Can you smell?_

The boy climbs onto her back. 

The mare shakes. She spins on her hindquarters (which is such a stupid word, and yet one of Helena's favorites). 

She whistles and lunges and charges to the bottom of the pond. A moment later, blood makes a bloom on the surface. All that is left of the farm-boy. 

"Sarah," Helena whispers. 

She lies awake while she draws her wings that night, and thinks only of the mare. 

 ***

Helena is a hunter. 

She goes where her scorpion sends her, and he's never wrong, insect whispering on her shoulder. She has killed so many things. Her vest is the pelt of a  _loup garou,_ her knife is made from mermaid bones, her hair is yellow from the curse of a witch in Helena's own country. And now Pupok sends her here, and didn't tell her what she would find. Still. The first time Helena saw the mare in the pond, dripping and smelling like death, she knew. 

No lilies ornament this pond. No fish. No leeches. No signs of life at all. Helena stands in the sand. 

Nothing. Not even wind. 

She whinnies. (She is so good at animal noises.) She skips a rock. "Come," she coaxes. "Let's have lunch." She waits for the stir in the water, the pointy black ears. She's sure they'd be soft as velvet if she took them in her fingers. "Come, Sarah." 

And then she does. 

"Come here," Helena rasps. "Beautiful-lovely-deadly, come, come - "  _and she does,_ her little ears swiveling. She can smell the wrongness about Helena as much as Helena can smell the wrongness about her, the pond devil. 

Weeds tangle in the mare's fetlocks. She halts where the water becomes the sand. 

Helena says, "Sarah." The mare's ears switch back. 

The net drops. 

Sarah screams. It sweeps her off of her wet-wet hooves, and her body thrashes, spraying water and little bones and mud. The net creaks. Sarah's strength is enough to dig the net into her skin. Blood wells. Again she screams.  _Words._

_What are you doing -_ the mare shrieks in a human's voice.  _Let go of me, let go -_ her hooves cannot come under her, which is as Helena intended.  _You bitch you hunter starved no bones cage tongueless -_

Helena puts her knife in her mouth and smiles around it. 

Sand flies.  _Bloody tree eater queenless killer -_ Through a tangle of wet forelock, Sarah hates her.  _Let me OUT -_

"I am sorry, Sarah," says Helena. "I also hate to be in a cage." Sarah's eyes do not look like horse's eyes. They are the eyes of a lizard, or the devil. They blink at her while her sides heave. Better. "I have an offer for you." Sarah's nostrils, Helena imagines, are as soft as her ears. She curls her fingers. She could trace the soft inside of Sarah's nose so easily. Sarah would bite, yes, but it would not matter. Helena would have touched her. 

Instead, Helena touches her flank. It feels like a seal. "We are going to be friends. I've seen it." 

Sarah snaps her teeth. 

"We will ride," she says. She replaces her hand with the tip of her mermaid-bone knife. "It would be beautiful. We would be so beautiful, you and me. Sarah." 

_We are not friends._

"Imagine," Helena insists. Sarah at least is still, so she must be listening. She must. "Imagine it." How they would look together, Helena and Sarah. "You kill that boy, yes? We could kill lots of things. Together. And eat them, too. Yes. I will not need my scorpion friend, if you will let me." 

Sarah screams again. 

Helena thought it might be that. "Tomorrow," she decides. "Tomorrow, I will come back, and we will see." 

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine kelpie!Sarah to have [Marwari ears.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Marwari_Filly_at_the_Kentucky_Ho.jpg)
> 
> Please comment/kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
